CISO Tribune

Vendor comparison · 2 companies

Daylight vs KnowBe4

Daylight sells managed agentic security services that combine an AI-native security platform with human expertise to detect, investigate, and respond to cyber threats. KnowBe4 sells attack simulation and training, email and collaboration security, and agent security through the KnowBe4 Platform. CISO Tribune files both under AI model and agent security. This page sets the two records side by side: what each sells, where it is based, who owns and funds it, the customers it names and its recent news, each fact numbered to its source.

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  • Daylight
  • KnowBe4
Daylight vs KnowBe4: Products, Customers and Funding Compared
DaylightDaylight sells managed agentic security services that combine an AI-native security platform with human expertise to detect, investigate, and respond to cyber threats.daylight.aiKnowBe4KnowBe4 sells attack simulation and training, email and collaboration security, and agent security through the KnowBe4 Platform.knowbe4.com
What it sells
  • MDR[1][4][5][6][8]A managed detection and response service in which Daylight owns the detection-to-response cycle from alert ingestion to resolution.
  • Phishing[1][4]Handles user-reported emails and security alerts around the clock as part of MDR.
  • DLP[1][4][5]Adds an investigation and response layer to DLP signals.
  • Security Data Lake[1]A security data lake meant to replace a SIEM.
  • Security Awareness Training[4][5][7]Education on recognizing threats, reinforced with phishing and vishing simulations.
  • Cloud Email Security[10]A suite of AI-driven products for inbound and outbound email.
  • Defend[1][4][5][6][10][11]Inbound email protection against phishing, ransomware and business email compromise.
  • Prevent[5][10][12]Outbound email protection and data loss prevention.
  • Compliance Plus[13]Compliance training platform.
  • Student Edition[5]Security awareness training for academic institutions.
  • BreachSim[14]A free tool to identify network vulnerabilities.
  • Weak Password Test[15]A free tool that finds users with weak passwords.
Categories
Headquarters
Not stated on its pagesClearwater, United States
Founded
Not stated on its pages2010[1]
Ownership and funding
Privately heldOwned by Vista Equity Partners since 2023[2][4][8][9]
Named customers
Not stated on its pagesNot stated on its pages
Recent news
Not stated on its pages
  • May 5, 2026KnowBe4 launched a two-tier Security Awareness Training offering and a new AI defense agent for custom content creation.[7]
  • April 6, 2026Dashlane announced an integration with KnowBe4 that links credential risk detection to security training for at-risk users.[18]
G2 and Gartner Peer Insights
  • G2: Not stated on its pages
  • Gartner Peer Insights: Not stated on its pages
  • G2: listed, seen November 4, 2026[8]
  • Gartner Peer Insights: listed, seen November 4, 2026[9]
Who it fits
Not written yetNot written yet
Last verified
November 10, 2026September 27, 2026

Where they overlap

  • Daylight and KnowBe4 are both filed under AI model and agent security.

Where they differ, field by field

  • Daylight's primary category is MDR and managed SOC; KnowBe4's is Security awareness training.
  • Daylight is also filed under Security data lakes and pipelines and Data loss prevention. KnowBe4 is also filed under Human risk management and Email security.
  • Daylight lists MDR, Phishing, DLP and Security Data Lake. KnowBe4 lists Security Awareness Training, Cloud Email Security, Defend, Prevent, Compliance Plus and 3 more.
  • KnowBe4 is headquartered in Clearwater, United States.
  • KnowBe4 was founded in 2010.
  • Daylight is privately held. KnowBe4 is owned by Vista Equity Partners, since 2023.

What it sells: Daylight

What MDR does[1][4][5][6][8]
Daylight owns the full detection-to-response cycle from alert ingestion to resolution, with contractual accountability. Investigations begin with identity, cloud, endpoint, SaaS, and historical context. For every confirmed case, Daylight drives remediation to completion, such as revoking sessions, resetting credentials, and blocking IPs. Daylight's MDR includes AI Security, phishing, and DLP.
What Phishing does[1][4]
Daylight handles user-reported emails and security alerts around the clock as part of MDR. Each reported email and security alert is investigated to a verdict and then remediated across every affected mailbox.
What DLP does[1][4][5]
Daylight adds the investigation and response layer that turns DLP signals into closed cases. Daylight drives real data theft to resolution and explains benign activity instead of only flagging it. DLP is included in Daylight's MDR.
What Security Data Lake does[1]
Daylight keeps 90 days of telemetry hot and immediately searchable, with older data archived at lower cost. Customers search the data themselves using plain English or KQL. Daylight handles the infrastructure, storage, and data operations.

What it sells: KnowBe4

What Security Awareness Training does[4][5][7]
KnowBe4 says it delivers timely, personalized education that helps people recognize threats. Lessons are reinforced with realistic phishing and vishing simulations.
What Cloud Email Security does[10]
KnowBe4 Cloud Email Security is a suite of AI-driven products designed to detect and prevent advanced email threats across inbound and outbound communication. Contextual banners and prompts are delivered at the point of risk.
What Defend does[1][4][5][6][10][11]
Defend detects and blocks phishing, ransomware and business email compromise with behavioral AI and self-learning threat models. Defend inserts color-coded banners on flagged email and rewrites links, checking them at time of click. Defend integrates with Microsoft Defender for Office 365 through API-based connectivity.
What Prevent does[5][10][12]
Prevent monitors outbound email in real time and alerts users to risky behavior, such as accidental sends or misdirected emails. Prevent is integrated with Microsoft Outlook and Office 365. Prevent Enterprise adds misdirected content detection and custom DLP policies.
What Compliance Plus does[13]
Compliance Plus has a training library of 1000+ items of compliance training content. Compliance Plus offers targeted training for requirements such as HIPAA, PCI and GDPR. Organizations can upload SCORM-compliant content to the KnowBe4 LMS.
What Student Edition does[5]
The KnowBe4 Student Edition enables academic institutions to prepare students to identify and prevent modern cyberattacks. Its training content covers phishing, BYOD risks, password hygiene, social media risks and campus scams.
What BreachSim does[14]
BreachSim is a free tool from KnowBe4 to identify network vulnerabilities. BreachSim tests over 12 realistic data exfiltration scenarios following the MITRE ATT&CK framework.
What Weak Password Test does[15]
The Weak Password Test is a free tool to help IT Administrators know which users have passwords that are easily guessed. It checks the Active Directory and generates a report of users with weak passwords.

Questions about Daylight and KnowBe4

What do Daylight and KnowBe4 sell?
Daylight sells MDR, Phishing, DLP and Security Data Lake. KnowBe4 sells Security Awareness Training, Cloud Email Security, Defend, Prevent, Compliance Plus and 3 more.
Are Daylight and KnowBe4 in the same category?
They share AI model and agent security. Daylight's primary category is MDR and managed SOC and KnowBe4's is Security awareness training.
Where are Daylight and KnowBe4 headquartered?
KnowBe4 is headquartered in Clearwater, United States.
When were Daylight and KnowBe4 founded?
KnowBe4 was founded in 2010.
Who owns Daylight and KnowBe4?
Daylight is privately held. KnowBe4 is owned by Vista Equity Partners, since 2023.
What have Daylight and KnowBe4 announced recently?
May 5, 2026: KnowBe4 launched a two-tier Security Awareness Training offering and a new AI defense agent for custom content creation.

About Daylight

Daylight sells managed agentic security services that combine an AI-native security platform with human expertise to detect, investigate, and respond to cyber threats. Under the Managed Agentic Security Services (MASS) model, agents execute security work at scale, while experts provide direction, judgment, and accountability. Daylight's Aura combines AI agents, security experts, and the customer's team into one platform with shared business context. Daylight states that cloud, identity, SaaS, and AI have expanded attack surfaces faster than traditional security services are prepared to follow. Daylight states that traditional services increase capacity by adding analysts, so the number of people required grows as the work grows.[2][3][4][13]

In its MDR service, Daylight owns the full detection-to-response cycle from alert ingestion to resolution, with contractual accountability. Daylight investigations begin with identity, cloud, endpoint, SaaS, and historical context. Daylight adapts its investigation to evidence across identity, endpoint, network, and cloud until the full picture is established. For every confirmed case, Daylight drives remediation to completion, such as revoking sessions, resetting credentials, and blocking IPs. Daylight maps a customer's detection surface against MITRE ATT&CK, covering every rule from each source. Daylight's MDR includes AI Security, phishing, and DLP.[4][5]

Daylight extends its MDR coverage to AI systems, detecting and investigating AI-native threats like agents, MCP servers, and LLM activity. Daylight's AI Security covers AI systems with detection, investigation, and response for every action, not only an audit-log view. Daylight detects malicious instructions and manipulation before agents act on them. Daylight brings every detection rule from a customer's SIEM, cloud, identity, and endpoint tools into a single library that runs continuously across the stack. Daylight handles user-reported emails and security alerts around the clock as part of MDR.[4][5][6]

Daylight's threat hunting uses autonomous agents that continuously hunt across a customer's security ecosystem with IOC- and hypothesis-driven techniques, guided by threat intelligence. Daylight's IOC hunts search for malicious IPs, domains, hashes, identities, and other indicators, then investigate matches and deliver a documented conclusion. When new vulnerabilities, campaigns, and supply-chain attacks emerge, Daylight turns threat intelligence into proactive hunts to determine whether the environment is exposed.[3][7]

Daylight keeps 90 days of telemetry hot and immediately searchable, with older data archived at lower cost and ready to rehydrate for historical investigations, audits, and compliance. Daylight stores raw telemetry as it arrives, without parsers, pipelines, or schemas required before it becomes searchable. Daylight handles the infrastructure, storage, and data operations of the data lake. The same telemetry powering Daylight MDR and threat hunting is available for a customer's own searches and investigations.[7][8]

Daylight manages detection engineering, rule tuning, and ongoing maintenance for customers. Daylight uses bi-directional integration to bring identity, device, cloud, and business context into every investigation and to share results back across the security ecosystem. Daylight uses AI-assisted onboarding and 120+ integrations to connect a customer's environment. Daylight states that its agentic services can develop new integrations within days. Daylight states that its experts across four regions keep customer hours. Daylight's team builds the detections, integrations, and automations for a customer's security program.[3][5][9]

During its POC, Daylight integrated the tools in Antidote Health's environment and set up customized detection rules on cloud, identity, and SaaS applications. Antidote Health is a health tech company delivering health insurance solutions in the U.S. LVT (LiveView Technologies, Inc.) provides rapidly deployable security hardware, powered by a proprietary SaaS platform. Daylight supports Tier 1 triage through automated end-user validation workflows, which let suspicious activity be confirmed directly with employees when appropriate. Daylight ingested Lusha's own API logs and built detection logic for unusual export volumes and scraping behavior. Lusha is a B2B sales intelligence platform.[1][4][7][8][10][11][12][14]

Daylight on the record

Sources

Daylight full record

  1. [1]daylight.aiDaylight · daylight.ai · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  2. [2]Daylight vs reliaquestDaylight · daylight.ai · published June 2, 2026 · Tier A
  3. [3]Managed Security Services | DaylightDaylight · undated page, accessed November 11, 2026 · Tier A
  4. [4]Managed Agentic Security ServicesDaylight · undated page, accessed November 11, 2026 · Tier A
  5. [5]Managed Detection and Response (MDR) Services | DaylightDaylight · undated page, accessed November 11, 2026 · Tier A
  6. [6]AI Threat Detection & Security Services | DaylightDaylight · undated page, accessed November 11, 2026 · Tier A
  7. [7]Managed Threat Hunting Services | DaylightDaylight · undated page, accessed November 11, 2026 · Tier A
  8. [8]Managed Security Data Lake | DaylightDaylight · undated page, accessed November 11, 2026 · Tier A
  9. [9]Security Integrations | DaylightDaylight · undated page, accessed November 11, 2026 · Tier A
  10. [10]How Antidote Health Secures a Fast-Changing StackDaylight · undated page, accessed November 11, 2026 · Tier A
  11. [11]How LVT Scaled Security Operations with DaylightDaylight · undated page, accessed November 11, 2026 · Tier A
  12. [12]How Lusha Scaled Security Without Building a SOCDaylight · undated page, accessed November 11, 2026 · Tier A
  13. [13]Our Story | DaylightDaylight · undated page, accessed November 11, 2026 · Tier A
  14. [14]How The Motley Fool Reached Zero Backlog with DaylightDaylight · undated page, accessed November 11, 2026 · Tier A

KnowBe4 full record

  1. [1]About usKnowBe4 · knowbe4.com · undated page, accessed September 27, 2026 · Tier A
  2. [2]Vista equity partners completes acquisition of knowbe4KnowBe4 · knowbe4.com · published February 1, 2023 · Tier A
  3. [3]Contact usKnowBe4 · knowbe4.com · undated page, accessed September 27, 2026 · Tier A
  4. [4]KnowBe4 | Secure Your Digital Workforce: Human + AIKnowBe4 · undated page, accessed October 26, 2026 · Tier A
  5. [5]KnowBe4 Student Edition | KnowBe4KnowBe4 · undated page, accessed October 26, 2026 · Tier A
  6. [6]Warning: Attackers Are Using Calendar Invite Files to Evade Security FiltersKnowBe4 · undated page, accessed October 26, 2026 · Tier A
  7. [7]KnowBe4 Launches AI-Native Attack Simulation & Training Product and Twelfth AI AgentBusiness Wire · published May 5, 2026 · Tier A
  8. [8]KnowBe4 Security Awareness Training Reviews 2026 - G2G2 · undated page, accessed October 26, 2026 · Tier C
  9. [9]KnowBe4 Reviews, Ratings & Features 2026 | Gartner Peer InsightsGartner Peer Insights · undated page, accessed October 26, 2026 · Tier C
  10. [10]Cloud Email Security for Microsoft 365 | KnowBe4KnowBe4 · undated page, accessed November 4, 2026 · Tier A
  11. [11]Pricing | DefendKnowBe4 · undated page, accessed November 4, 2026 · Tier A
  12. [12]Pricing | Prevent | KnowBe4KnowBe4 · undated page, accessed November 4, 2026 · Tier A
  13. [13]Compliance Plus: Compliance Training Platform | KnowBe4KnowBe4 · undated page, accessed November 4, 2026 · Tier A
  14. [14]BreachSim | KnowBe4KnowBe4 · undated page, accessed November 4, 2026 · Tier A
  15. [15]Weak Password Test | KnowBe4KnowBe4 · undated page, accessed November 4, 2026 · Tier A
  16. [16]Security Culture Report Analysis Center | KnowBe4KnowBe4 · undated page, accessed November 4, 2026 · Tier A
  17. [17]KnowBe4 Customer Success | KnowBe4KnowBe4 · undated page, accessed November 4, 2026 · Tier A
  18. [18]Dashlane Launches First-of-its-Kind Integration with KnowBe4 to Transform Security Awareness into Proactive DefensePR Newswire · published April 6, 2026 · Tier A

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